Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki

Utley Gets OK to Start Hitting

Chase Utley has clearance to start swinging a bat again.

Utley, who had surgery July 1 to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb, visited hand specialist Andrew Weiland today in New York. Weiland, who performed the surgery, told Utley he could begin hitting.

“Which is very positive news from our perspective,” assistant general manager Scott Proefrock said. “From this point forward it’s going to be a matter of how he feels and how he progresses. We’re still on the same timetable we’ve been on before. It’s gone pretty much according to plan to this point.”

The Phillies originally estimated Utley would miss eight weeks, which would set his return for Sept. 1.

“I don’t think anything has changed from that perspective,” Proefrock said. “If it progresses faster than that, great. If it’s a little slower than that, great. The main thing is Chase is healthy and ready to play at his full capacity when he comes back.”

Utley has said he hopes to return before the end of the month.

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I just hope Chase doesn’t try to hard to get back early and aggrevate the injury. Polanco and Valdez can handle 2nd base and Chase wasn’t knocking in a lot of runs before his injury. The O has more than picked up the slack with Ryan, Chase, and Shane out. IT’S THE BULLPEN that gives all phans to panic attacks. Bastardo is still not ready for the Show. JC can’t find any part of the strike zone except for the nitro-zone of every hitter. Baez is………Baez. Herndon is good for one inning, but Charlie insists on using him for more than that, with the results being what they have been…..Even Dobbs, Contreras, Madson, and Lidge can instill more fear in the hearts of us phans than the hitters they are pitching to. PLEASE RUBEN, GET SOME HELP FOR THE PEN!

erich, it sound like they will have a hard time getting bullpen help unless it comes from within. Anybody the may want keeps getting blocked in waivers, by who I don’t know. Plus I think whoever has a player they may want will try to rip them off. The asking price was too high in July and that won’t change.
The bullpen did a great job tonight backing up a stellar performance by Oswalt.

Nice to see Lidge have a 1,2,3 9th inning :-) Oswalt looked like the Oswalt we expected (his first two starts were a bit shaky). Sorry to see Gload possibly joining the M*A*S*H unit. He was swinging the bat really well.

You guys are doing a nice job of staying close, but the Braves aren’t really competing with the Fillies any longer. They are playing against St. Louis and San Diego for home field advantage. You might want to keep an eye on the wild card standings.

Oh and Blown Save Brad is really cranking now huh??? Phan 52, you crack me up. I guess his ERA is down to 4.44 now, while Wagner’s is up to a ******** 1.78. You know you really ought to pick your battles better. But I guess no one see’s em here anyway. We have 209 posts on our latest thread, I see you guys are up to a ******** 7. Whoops.

billreef, you crack me up. Casual baseball fans who think they know what they are talking about always do. You still think that the baseball seson ends in August, and you decide to pick on Brad Lidge when he has saved 10 of his last 11 attempts, while the clown you have at the back of your bullpen is blowing it nightly. If you paid attention to MLB you would know that it is Billy Wagner’s typical late-season MO. Wait till he starts pointing fingers at the other players, blaming them for his woes. Watch and learn, kid.

billreef: This is MLB, where the B stands for baseball, not blogging. I don’t care how many posts you have or what words are allowed, I care about one thing…that you and your F_U_C_K_I_N_G team will, once again, be watching October baseball on TVs while we have W.S. games for teh thrid year in a row

Wow, Atlanta has a blog with more posts than this one. Maybe billreef should try to visit all of these blogs devoted to Philly sports, enough for a Phield of 64. I am sure the casual sports fans in Atlanta could never relate.

What billybob reefer fails to mention is how frequent the entries on the Atlanta blog are to which the fans respond. I bet billybob reefer wears bib overall, does not own a pair of shoes, is missing some teeth and plays the banjo. And his idea of a fun day is going to the family barbecue to pick up chicks.

? “It’s not very hard to figure out when you suck like I do. Everything I did went wrong.”
– Billy Wagner

? “I don’t think you can ever brush those games off. It’s tough to swallow when you know you had this game and it slips away.”
– Billy Wagner

? “Just about everything I did was wrong, Situation like that you’ve got to make pitches. They’re scrappy. They find a way to do it. You can’t give them opportunities to do it and that’s exactly what I did.”
– Billy Wagner

? “Any loss is tough, but it was a good ballgame. It was going to come down to one hit and who could get that one run across and they got it. They had been struggling just as bad as we were to get that run. It was a good pitch… I mean it was a really, really, really good pitch.?
– Billy Wagner

billreef: Here’s the thing about Wagner and his fraud ERA. His second half ERA is 3.38 after a 1.78 first half. Clearly, he is fading fast, and it was only McCann’s handiwork that kept the Braves from blowing another one. A closer with 8 decisions in August is blowing a lot of games.

Secondly, it’s hysterical to me when a “Braves fan” logs on to another blog and starts talking smack. Last week, they were playing a game against the Giants in Atlanta to a half-full house, which is customary in Atlanta where apparently there are better things to do than watch baseball. Historically, they have failed to sell-out games, even when they were winning division titles.
It’s the worst sports city in America, and Braves fans don’t deserve to have a .500 team, let alone one that is clinging to first place.
Nitwit.

Thank you all for your kind comments, I would like to suggest that we all have a moment of quiet reflection in Honor of Future Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones. You know this blog has gotten a lot busier since I logged on. I must be good for business.

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